Classes on chopping block
Proposal would eliminate 11 hours and afternoon recess at Bompas; 50 hours at Thomas Simpson
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, February 23, 2017
LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Every school in the Deh Cho region has opted in to a pilot project that could see up to 100 hours of class time reduced for students.
During a literacy night at Bompas Elementary School on Jan. 26, teacher Karen Hudry, centre, played a game of Scattergories with students. From left, in the gray hoodie, are Jaicee Tsetso, Cadence Erasmus, Kaden Kwasney-Nahanni, Hudry, Seth Okrainec-Cli and a fellow student. If class time cuts go as planned, these students will be seeing less of the inside of the classroom. - NNSL file photo
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The three-year pilot project aims to provide a higher quality of education, according to Dehcho Divisional Education Council superintendent Terry Jaffray, and comes as part of a collective agreement between the territorial government and the Northwest Territories Teachers Association that was ratified in September.
The project is voluntary for schools but each participating school must write a proposal for where they want to make the cuts and to what degree. Jaffray said she would review the proposals and send them to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment for final review by March 15.
The departmental review is expected to be finished in April, with implementation set for the 2017-18 school year.
The extra time afforded to teachers would ostensibly give them the opportunity to pursue professional development and collaborate with other teachers, as well as give them more time to work on school-related duties such as marking and meeting with parents or students.
Bompas Elementary School principal Kelley Andrews-Klein said during a Feb. 16 public meeting that studies from the Northwest Territories Teachers Association and the GNWT show teachers work 52 hours per week, on average.
"That workload isn't reasonable or healthy for teachers," she said.
Jaffray said the average yearly hours of instructional time for students in the Northwest Territories is 1,045, approximately 100 hours above the amount of time offered in other provinces and territories.
Bompas school currently sits slightly below average, offering slightly less than 1,000 hours of instructional time, while Thomas Simpson Secondary School is above average with 1,060 hours.
Nahendeh MLA Shane Thompson, who chairs the legislative assembly's standing committee on social development, said he wants to see people give the pilot project a chance.
If it works, he said, the impacts on education for the region could be very positive.
"It's helping students and teachers. I'm hoping this leads to better success for our students," Thompson said.
The standing committee on social development received a public briefing on the proposal, which came after press time the evening of Feb. 21.
Bompas and Thomas Simpson in Fort Simpson will not see the full 100 hours cut.
Jaffray said the current plan is for the schools to cut one Monday morning per month in some months and one and a half Mondays in other months, for a combined total of 10 days.
"(The principals) are planning to have another community meeting to show their actual proposal, and so there will be calendars with the dates in it," she said.
"The teachers feel having the Monday is (best) because of lower attendance in the morning. They feel that's a good time to do that."
Bompas principal Kelley Andrews-Klein said the school has not yet finalized the calendar with proposed dates and will be meeting with Thomas Simpson Secondary School before doing so.
However, most of those 10 days will be made up elsewhere. At Bompas, Jaffray said the plan is to cut afternoon recess, adding instructional time which would in theory offset most of the lost Mondays.
With that taken into account, Bompas will see a total reduction in instructional time of approximately 11 hours over the course of the school year.
Jaffray said she has asked teachers at the school to look into how cutting afternoon recess may impact students.
"There is research for people like office workers that says every hour you should get up and walk around. So (we want) to make sure in a classroom setting that they're having a mixture of sedentary activities and active," she said.
"That way the kids aren't just sitting in their desks all afternoon. That would be hard and it might lead to less focus or disruption."
At Thomas Simpson, the Mondays will be made up for by taking time out of Teacher Advisory Group (TAG), which Jaffray describes as being similar to a homeroom class.
"They do a lot of things that have to do with their course credits and academic counselling. They also have a study period at that time," she explained.
The total reduction of hours at Thomas Simpson works out to approximately 50 hours, she added.
See related story: "Parents blast proposal to cut 10 days from school calendar"
